When I Didn’t Cry at Your Wedding

Your wedding was a long time coming. We all felt like that and it has almost nothing to do with Jeffrey’s inability to get on the same page as everyone else. Your wedding has been in the works since the very first time you told me about how your husband was going to be this and your wedding was going to look like that… I am sure you even drew me pictures of how you were going to wear the most beautifulest white wedding dress and were going to marry some prince charming and live happily ever after. I think you were positive at the age of 4-5 that marriage couldn’t come fast enough for your liking! 

For so long you have fluctuated between being Kitty or Lydia in your silliness and theatrics, dreaming and imagining what the day would be like – no one could deny that before too long… your day would come. And come it has!

I learned a huge lesson at Spencer and Mary Elizabeth’s wedding and applied it at Hank and Emily’s. If I keep the sentimentality to a minimum during the service and make certain that I focus on the message of Christ I won’t cry and I was strong at yours. I was strong throughout the months before. I was strong the week of and I was even strong at the reception!

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been thinking about your wedding for so very long or what but I didn’t get emotional at all until you and I were all alone in that old car, waiting to walk down the aisle. In that moment I was drawn into the reality of your dream coming true and I saw visions of Darcy stuttering out his love for Lizzie or Edward correcting Elinor’s misunderstanding of his marital status and then professing to her that his “heart is, and always will be, yours.” There, in that moment, with you in your precious dress, I saw my little girl with her smile so big and her eyes so wide and my heart skipped, my breath caught, and my eyes began to water. 

I have made a big deal about the twins lying through their teeth about not getting married but that has NEVER been a joke that I could make at your expense – You were made to be a wife and now you are. Everything about the wedding was superb – the decorations, venue, the weather, the food, the guests, the dress, the theme, the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in you, and the dream. Y’all did well and I am proud of you – I love you desperately and I want you to always remember whose daughter you still are!