Times like these

I love weddings. Weddings make me tear up and grin like an idiot.  My favorite moment? When the church doors open and the bride's standing there, resplendent in all her ivory and lace, holding on to her father.

Or rather, her father holding on to her. The dad's face is always what gets my tear ducts going. Because it's so clear that he's remembering the first time she held his hand, the first time she walked. The first time she said "dada." His little girl is getting married. A new chapter is starting for her, but one giant chapter of his life is dwindling down to its last few scenes.

That moment is also the moment when the groom sees his future wife for the first time. And I love love love seeing all the emotion in that one glance. Because inevitably, no matter how many "first looks" the photographers have staged, that moment is the real deal. And if the groom tears up, it's a surefire bet that my eyes are glistening too.

I went to my first friend wedding a couple of days ago. Sure, I've been to my share of weddings in the past, but they were always family friend weddings. This was my first friend friend wedding. And the fact that it was my high school orchestra's stand partner's wedding was huge and nostalgia inducing. We were gangly and awkward and poking each other in the eyes with our bows just yesterday! Or at least, it seems like it was just yesterday. Weren't we just playing octets and quartets and trios and ending the Wedding March in a minor key at other people's weddings? It seems like just yesterday that we were making up bus ride games and singing Backstreet Boys and Moulin Rouge at the top of our lungs as we recreated scenes from Sound of Music, playing our way through Austria and the rest of the European countryside. I can still remember our senior retreat, as we played practical jokes on each others' cabins, until it all ended with cake on everyone's faces, silly string everywhere. And it seems like just yesterday he was picking me up for prom, in the dinkiest and dirtiest Honda Civic ever, my poofy pink dress barely fitting in the car.

Somehow along the way, without any of us knowing it, we grew up and became adults.

[The girls on our last night in Europe, in 2000]

It was a gorgeous day for a wedding. And an even more beautiful day to catch up with old friends. I can't believe it's been ten years. We all grew up much too fast.