As I have fully embraced my role as a celebrant, I find myself thinking about relationships and marriages a lot. We celebrants take great pride in “telling the story” of the couple about to be married. It is a wonderful, sweet, moving part of the ceremony–how “our” couple found each other, fell in love, and decided to marry. I try to fill these stories with all of the gravity (and levity) that a wedding day deserves.
This morning I decided to try an experiment. On my facebook page, I invited “friends” to tell me how they met their beloved. A couple of dozen individuals replied. It was great fun reading about their experiences. While there were some themes among the folks who replied, the bottom line: magic–just plain magic–happens all the time. I don’t know if my sample is a representative one, but a few people met in school, some met at work. I had a good number of “was introduced by a mutual friend,” etc. etc.
But then there were posts like this, from my high school friend Melody: I was working a 2nd job bartending part-time when I was a single mom w/ 2 boys and he was the Budweiser man. He never knew what hit him, he is still shaking his head 17 years later. Or how about this, from my colleague Cheryl: we met in a baseball chat room just by chance. I had never been in a chatroom and it was the first time I wandered in. Started talking to him, then after about 2 hours of online talk, he wanted my number. I was anxious, but something told me to give it to him. We talked for another three hours and then every night since then. After 4 months of long distance talk, we met in person, hit it off, and we decided that I should move to NYC. Moved in Sept 05, got married Nov 07, going on two years now! Everytime I meet a couple, I am dumb struck by the “chances” that they found each other. It is all a wonderful miracle of the universe.
This evening, after work, I was out with a few of my girlfriends. These ladies are dynamite–smart, attractive, witty, accomplished, and kind. And, for the most part, they are still looking for amazing companionship. In a city like New York, for women of a certain age, the oft-quoted statistics can be overwhelming. But, I hope when these super women read this blog they might take away my hypothesis–magic happens all the time. It can happen anytime. And it need only happen once.
p.s. The shot above is of Carmie and Bob. They recently renewed their wedding vows in NY, in honor of their 10th wedding anniversary. She is originally from Montreal; Bob is from Toronto. They met on a seemingly mundane business training trip to NYC, 12 years ago. Magic.
