Of rings and bonds

The morning dawned through the narrow slits in my half-sleepy, half-asleep eyes, and I considered the day ahead. Saturday. There was a nagging sensation, a feeling, that there was somewhere I was supposed to be today. Then it slowly began to dawn on me. I should have been getting dressed up to the nines and, as is my wont, feeling excessively nervous, with more butterflies fluttering around my stomach than both the bride and groom whom God is about to join together so that no man shall put them asunder.

A wedding. That’s it. A wedding across town. I should be at a wedding, even though I generally loathe such occasions. Hate them with a passion. Yet I really should be at this particular wedding. Indeed, I even want to be at this one, and not merely for the purpose of toasting the newlyweds, quickly but inevitably followed by a rapid descent into mild drunkenness and embarrassing myself in front of respectable families of complete strangers.

Interlude, to be read by the unnamed bride only: If you’ve happened across this entry sometime after your hopefully blissful honeymoon, and your face is by now displaying a look of wide-eyed horror coupled with a huge sigh of relief that I didn’t manage to make it to your big day, you should probably imagine me clumsily draping my arm round you and holding yet another glass of sparkling champagne aloft as I lurch towards your left ear and commence slurring. Loudly. “You are my beshtesht, beshtesht friend in the whole wide world. I know that I’ve only jusht met you, right? Right? But you’re my beshtesht friend evah! Really. I love you. I mean, I do. Not like your new husband loves you, right? No, not like that - it’s okay, mate, jusht my little joke, see? - but as a friend. My new beshtesht friend. I know we’ve, like, only jusht met and shtuff, but you’re my beshtesht friend and I feel like I’ve known you forever …”

I was surprised at my desire to be at this wedding, though. My previous experiences of such ceremonies number only two, neither of which feature the fondest of memories. At the first, the bride and groom wrote their own vows. Hearing this worrying news, I prepared for the moment when I would have to sidle off and hide myself behind the towering wedding cake, whilst I stuck my fingers down my throat in order to vomit at the sickeningly cloying sentimentality of it all. Unfortunately, when the reading of the vows arrived, I found myself weeping. And sniffing. And dabbing at my eyes with a paper tissue - a paper tissue, moreover, that was passed to me by the groom’s mother because she had obviously taken pity on my poor tear-stained self whilst still managing to shed fewer tears than me. Needless to say, I was mortified. I have a reputation as a bitter and twisted cynic to uphold, you know.

At the second wedding, I only turned up for the post-ceremony garden party and, knowing no one except the bride, spent three hours sitting under a tree listening to the rather intense and socially awkward eight-year-old son of one of the guests as he lectured me in authoritative detail about the complexities of the Star Wars films. (That particular series of science-fiction movies is, of course, a noted favourite of mine. Possibly. In some parallel universe.)

Despite the fact that the wedding I was invited to today could, potentially, have been littered with more social anxieties than someone of my nervous disposition even cared to think about, I dearly wanted to be there - mainly because I wished, finally, to be introduced to the bride. That’s right, I have never met her in person. She is one of those mysterious people whom my mother, whilst eyeing me somewhat suspiciously and employing a distinctly disapproving tone of voice, calls an “internet friend”. We have read each other’s sites for some years, corresponded via long, free-form emails covering such wide-ranging topics as Everything and Nothing, and recommended favourite authors to each other as only bookish types do. Even so, I was still surprised when, in a curiously trusting but deeply touching gesture, she invited me to join her for one of the most important days of her life.

Sadly, of course, a suddenly departing lower right leg rather put paid to my plans to attend. Whether I would have managed to conquer the nerves and all-encompassing social terror to be there if my leg had remained attached is another question entirely. But I truly hope so.

And so it is that I have spent some of today imagining myself and the only other invited guest I know - who shares a very similar relationship to the bride as myself - standing nervously on the fringes of the post-nuptial celebrations, looking for all the world like startled deer trapped in the piercing glare of car headlights. Occasionally, we would greet and hug the bride with giddy, bursting-at-the-seams excitement as she passed through the happy throng, and then giggle like naughty schoolchildren when other relatives and family friends approached us to ask whether we’re with the bride or groom’s party.

“With the bride. Yes, we’re with the bride. No, we’ve never met her. No, and we’ve never met each other before today, either. Unusual? Well, yes, I suppose it is a little unusual. But we’re all friends. Though we’re from three different countries. Yes, that’s right, the internet. Yes, hilarious, isn’t it?”

I’m assuming, indeed I’m hoping, that it would become easier to explain this sometimes odd three-way friendship as the hour got later and the bubbly stuff succeeded in loosening our taut nerves. If not, we would have to give up on sense and start inventing bizarre, far-fetched tales about being sufferers of wedding phobia, for whom attendance at this joyful celebration is an essential part of our therapeutic treatment program. Or something.

Tonight, then, I’m toasting the happily married couple with a glass of lemon ice tea rather than champagne, and wishing that I could be there to gently unnerve some of your guests with my partner in crime for the day. In my absence, I’m disappointed to say that I wasn’t even able to buy you the gift of a toaster, despite regarding it as an absolute necessity to invest in such an utterly stereotypical item for newlyweds setting up home together. Never mind, because my presence - or even my present - isn’t what’s important here. All I ask is that you make sure that one of the tin cans tied to the rear bumper of the wedding car has my name scrawled upon it, because I promise that it will be carrying my best wishes for every happiness to a bride I’ve never met. And her husband, of course.

I should be at a wedding today. A wedding across town. Oh, and across the small matter of an ocean, too.