I told Joey that I wanted our wedding to be about more than just him and me. If our marriage was entirely about us, we could simply elope in a chapel in Vegas and get everything we wanted out of it. But the reason we were having an actual wedding, with crudités and table decorations and an audience, was to tie a community together. I wanted our ceremony to be a process of gratitude and unification. We’d both seen weddings where the ceremony itself was ten minutes long, a poem and some “I do’s,” but we wanted our ceremony to be the focal point. I wanted it to be interactive and emotional and tailored to our friends and family as much as it was to us.
The average cost of a New York City wedding is $77,000. I did not make that much money in all of 2019, so there was no way that was going to happen. Our budget was a tenth of that. All of my friends’ weddings had servers who helped dole out food and planners who put out the chairs and designed the centerpieces. I assumed that we’d need to do the same—hire a crew to make the day happen. But Joey laughed at me. “I’ve got like twelve people in my family,” he said, astonished at my fancy nonsense. “We have a whole crew!”
“That’s not what I meant by interactive,” I fought back. “It’s fine that your family can help without resenting you for it afterward or thinking that you were cheap, but I don’t have any family.” I had invited a cousin and an aunt, but I did not invite my parents. The decision was painful, but at the end of the day, I wanted to be surrounded by people who loved me. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable asking my friends to do that. It would seem like an obligation.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure they’d love to help!” he insisted. “Just ask!”
And so we enlisted the help of my friends and his family to fold one thousand paper cranes to decorate our wedding. His brother learned the harp to be our on-site musician. And then the day arrives. A small army of our people shows up to the venue hours before our ceremony to set up tables and chairs, help me into my dress, tape together my bouquet, run to the store to get balloons. The whole time, I am a beam of pure adrenaline as I direct people here and there, ending each request with a wad of guilt and gratitude: “Do this, please. Sorry! Thank you!”
And then time stands still for a moment. I hear the harp music playing, and I walk myself down the aisle. Joey welcomes me with a hug. We are standing outside under a white wooden arch draped with garlands of paper cranes. Even though it is September, we lucked out: It is a perfect day, seventy-eight degrees and sunny. At our garden venue, the blossoms sway in the light breeze, the branches of trees whisper to one another. A little green caterpillar makes his way to the top of the microphone. A very fat cat sidles up to Joey and nuzzles him sweetly. I grip the microphone with a trembling hand and address our audience:
“Love is not a finite resource, something you have to mete out carefully like a package of Oreos. Instead, providing love begets more love, which begets more and more love.
“As many of you know, I grew up largely with the absence of love, and I was essentially orphaned fifteen years ago. And sometimes that was as sad as it sounds. But most of the time, it wasn’t. Because I wasn’t alone. The same way I am not alone here today.
“To my friends: Even in my loneliest, most painful moments, it was your love that shone through the dark. Your love kept me alive. Your love raised me. When I let your love in, it made me better. It taught me how to slowly become kinder and gentler, and then, as love tends to do, it multiplied and blossomed and taught me how to love myself, and how to love others, and how to love this wonderful man…to give him buckets of love, all the love he deserves. So I am truly grateful that you are here today to witness your handiwork. You put us here. Thank you.
“And to Joey’s family, the family I’m joining today: Thank you so much for showing me what a real, actual loving family unit looks like. Even when it involves chaos and yelling and the dog pooping on the floor, your family is forgiving, and loyal, and truly dedicated to each other, and for all of your quirks, each of you is fundamentally kind. From the very beginning, you all welcomed me into your loving chaos with open arms. You said, ‘You’re ours now.’ Grandma, your mother took in a baby whose mother died and loved him as her own child. You loved him as your own brother. And three generations later, your family has not forgotten that lesson. Love begets love. I cannot express how monumental it is to me to exchange gossip and forgiveness with all of you, to play games and laugh with siblings, and to pick up the phone and say the words ‘Hi, Mom.’ Thank you for being here today and every day. In return, I will try my best to carry on your family tradition of generosity and acceptance for generations to come.”
I look up from the paper I am reading from. There is so much sniffling. Tears are gushing down Dustin’s cheeks, and Kathy’s and Jen’s faces match their pink dresses. Joey’s eyes are brimming, too, and then he asks everyone to reach under their seats.
When I’d expressed that I wanted a community-based wedding, Joey had not only agreed but also suggested we write a personal letter to every single person in the audience telling them why we were glad to have them in our lives. At this point, everyone finds these letters taped underneath their seats and murmurs their surprise.
Someone calls out, “Do we open these, Joey?”
He stretches out his arms. “Open them!”
I had originally brightened at Joey’s idea. But, in practice, many of the letters were difficult to write. Each of them had its own unique challenge. Some friendships felt like delicate glass globes—they were relatively new, and maybe if I pressed too hard on them, they would break. Some friendships felt too enormous to sum up in words—I’d been friends with Kathy and Dustin since I was nine. Some friendships had immense value to me in college or my early twenties, but they hadn’t been quite as active in my life since then. And then there were people like my old boss at Snap Judgment, Mark—I loved him, but our relationship generally revolved around good-natured shit-talking. He constantly made fun of me for being a cheapskate. I once called him to make sure he was okay after being injured but then spent most of the time roasting him for the cause of his injury: falling down while rollerblading. I teased, “It’s not the ’90s anymore, old man!” He shot back, “Very funny, motherfucker.” How could I tell this chodebucket how much I appreciated him without sounding sappy and lame?