Bride and Groom

Bride and groom. She did this first, of course, and she walks with me now. I’m wearing the most comfortable suit I’ve ever owned. I was prepared for it to be less than perfect - a pinch too tight around the chest, perhaps; maybe trousers too long because of the waistband sitting a little lower on my hips. But it’s like I’m wearing pyjamas, soft and warm against the autumn air. A contrast waistcoat for a little flair, and a coordinating burgundy tie that my oldest friend bought me for the occasion.

I think she’s impressed. The dress she wore when she did this was a flouncy confection, worn with the benefit of others in mind, one shoulder strap made entirely of beads that drooped forlornly whenever she forgot to hold her shoulders back. I can feel her smile widen with each step we take. I make sure my back is straight.

Both of us have given so much thought over the years to what it means to be a wife, to be a husband. She had felt that first wedding was a performance that kicked off more performing. I feel so strongly that this wedding is a ceremony marking the deep truth of our commitment. To be a husband. To love as a man, to love with honour and devotion, to give myself to my wife in absolute commitment, to grow stronger and older, and no less me.

I hold her closer as the moment arrives. I feel such overwhelming compassion for her, and I want her to feel every humming chime of the happiness I feel right now. I was worried that some things would bleed through from that first wedding, like lurid blotches on white satin. But she reassures me that it was nothing like this, not really. Some external similarities perhaps, two people making vows before an officiant, fancy clothes, a bride in white, a groom in a suit.

But, she points out, the bride I’m gazing at in stunned adoration today is looking back at me with no melancholy resignation, only loving recognition of her partner.

I thank her for keeping me safe all these years. I thank her for the mistakes she made and learned from. I thank her for her courage when it was time to end the performance. I think about that vow ‘until we are parted by death’ and how her existence faded like dew evaporating in the warmth of the morning sun, and made me so much less afraid to live.

The woman I love and will spend the rest of my life with runs her thumbs softly over my knuckles, both of my hands entwined with hers. She never knew me when I was that bride, or when I play-acted as wife and woman. She always saw me as I really am, and each of the vows she now says are a testimony of that.

The air feels so fresh in my lungs as I breathe in this moment, trying to take in as much detail as possible, because I know the finite nature of memory.

The vows I once said were traditions passed down, a woman is given away and marries a man, repeated like a fading xerox through generations. Today, there is no transfer of ownership. The vows I say now, I wrote myself, and they burst from me in the unrepeatable colours of nature.

I once married as a bride, costumed as a woman, ready to shrink and hide. Today, I married as the groom, with no disguise at all, ready to grow and thrive as myself.