There’s just something magical about weddings!

It’s hard not to smile when you see how happy the bride is, and when you catch the groom adoringly admiring the bride or hear him retelling their story, it’s simply delightful. But being a single 30-something female without a man or even the potential of a man does tend to taint that blissful view. More and more, I find that I both love and loathe weddings!

When I attend a wedding, I’m safe for an hour or 2—just enough time to catch the wedding and spend a short time at the reception—that I can handle, but after that, I can’t take it anymore. I’m done…doesn’t actually diminish my happiness for the bride and groom. I’m thrilled for them, but after a couple of hours, I personally crash.

To me weddings are both hope and pain. It’s exciting to see another couple joined in holy matrimony. Just watching them pledge their love for one another gives me just a wee bit of hope that maybe there really is someone special ahead for me as well. Not that my current life isn’t satisfying just the way it is, but there is still that GOD-given longing to share my life with someone. And so for a brief while, something stirs inside of me and revives that feeling and sensation of excitement and anticipation that “it could still happen.” It’s as if I have wings, and it’s all right to dream again.

But once the wedding is all over, I return back to the real world, and I crash down from that pinnacle of hope. The post-wedding blues arrive and suddenly that earlier “high” transforms into something dark and morbid. The hope is replaced with despair and anxiety! Where once was confidence, fear has taken over, and I’m longing to be anywhere but there, and so I leave. I mentally check out and return to my own little life.

I guess weddings cause me to face my greatest fear—that of being alone. To those who know me, this may sound like a contradiction since I claim to love being alone and enjoy my solitude perhaps more than I should. But maybe it’s all a sham. Perhaps I shut myself in to keep hope out and to prevent myself from longing for more than I already have. For where there is hope, there is also the opportunity for pain…